


Full Term

by crowdedangels



Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship or unrequited, it's left open
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowdedangels/pseuds/crowdedangels
Summary: Four scenes from Vic's pregnancy if she'd gone full term.





	Full Term

**Author's Note:**

> My brain is a dick and kept pinging me with different things Walt would have done if Vic had gone full term. My ABFF Tricki told me to share the pain so blame her.

.. **on** **e..**

He flicked on the truck headlamps when the light went too low. He hadn’t intended to still be out past dark but he was in a rhythm and didn't want to stop working just yet.

 

He did another coat of varnish on the solid panes and propped the spindled sides against them to dry, all to be assembled the next day..

 

After a quick tidy, he headed inside with a few of the tools, a spare bit of wood and an idea. He dropped the beers - three so he wouldn't have to get up again - onto the table and settled down the couch with a groan at aching muscles. Maybe he shouldn’t have spent all night hunched over a work table after a full day of policing.

 

He sketched out the design and started to whittle it out, brushing the dust and scrapings from his jeans to the floor.

 

It was past two when he finally just lay down on the couch and closed his eyes, a crude flower and petals drying on pieces of newspaper on the table.

 

“Hey, Ruby?” he asked into the radio the next morning.

 

“Oh, so you are alive, Walt?” came the reply.

 

“Yeah, sorry, I should’ve called in. Can you, er, ask Vic to come down? And to bring her keys?”

 

He watched at Vic appeared at the window, flashing him a look and shrug that he read to mean ‘ _I only just climbed all those freakin’ stairs, why you making me do them again?’_ before Ruby’s voice crackled over the line again. “She’s on her way.”

 

Walt waited at the back of the truck, his ankles crossed and head tipped low as fatigue still fought for attention.

 

“What the hell, Walt?” Vic admonished, her voice breathy. Even Walt’s spare shirts from the bathroom/storeroom weren’t closing over the bump anymore but she still wore them open over tee shirts.

 

“Got you something.”

 

“Something you had to drag a very pregnant woman down a flight of stairs for?”

 

“Yep.” He swung the spare tire out from the bumper and dropped the tailgate. With a flourish, he pulled the sheet from the walnut and pine handmade crib, complete with sunflower attached to the headboard.

 

“ _Walt…”_

 

“If you don't like it, I figured you could sell it and put it towards one you did.” He dragged it forward on the truck, suddenly feeling a bit self conscious about it. “Um, the mattress has three levels so it can grow with her, and eventually I can take this side out so it's a big girl bed, y’know? Um…”

 

Vic stepped forward, reaching over the tailgate as far as she could to swipe her fingers over the wooden swindles. “You made this?” her voice was low, her emotions getting the better of her.

 

He didn’t say anything, just shuffled his feet on the tarmac.

 

“It’s beautiful, Walt. I can’t… Can we take this to Travis’ before I start crying on the street?”

 

Walt grinned, pulling the sheet back over it and closing up the tailgate.

  


.. **two**..

  


The information turned out to be a bust in Casper. Typically.

 

“Sorry you came all this way, Sheriff.”

 

He shook his head, “No, no. Just... call us if anyone matching the description rolls through town.”

 

“Of course. You heading straight back? Joanie’s does a mean french toast if you have the time.”

 

Walt looked to the sporting goods store in the strip mall across the street, “I, um, need to make a stop before I hit the road but not at Joanie’s. Thank you though,” he flashed a smile before sticking out his hand and bidding farewell to the young Deputy.

 

He crossed the street with a little run, pulling on the door and getting assaulted with the smell of leather, plastic and wintergreen; he suddenly flashed to all those years of his youth, sitting in smelly, sweaty changing rooms before The Big Game. A pang of nostalgia hit out of nowhere of Martha waiting on the sideline for him, his biggest and loudest cheering section.

 

“Um, hockey?” He asked, clearing his throat and his mind, being pointed in the direction of a far wall.

 

He circled the section before he finally found what he was looking for. The stores in Durant didn't hold much for out of town teams so he was happy to take the couple of hours drive to State capital to follow up with the locals.

 

The Philadelphia Flyers onesie seemed impossibly small. He fingered the soft cotton and huffed out a breath, draping it over his palm, remembering when Cady used to fit in one hand with her big eyes looking up to him.

 

He took the newborn size and hooked it over his finger, looking for anything else a future number one fan would need. He noticed a garishly orange tee shirt with the logo on sale and figured it would be a waste not to, even if it would take baby girl Moretti years to grow into it.

 

“Finding everything okay, sir?”

 

Walt looked to the young cashier at his side. “Yeah. Do you have kids horse riding stuff?”

 

  
.. **three**..

  


“Walter!” Ruby’s voice hollered through the office; the tone, pitch and full name having him running from his desk. “It’s Vic.”

 

He took the phone, “Vic?”

 

“Walt! Fuck! I think-I think she’s coming, Walt. Something’s wrong- _mmm!”_ her voice trailed off, sounding like her lips were bitten together through pain.

 

“I’m on my way.”

 

“Hurry, Walt, _please.”_

 

He tossed the phone back Ruby, running back to his office for his keys and throwing the private door open on his way out as Ruby kept Vic on the line.

 

He broke all the speeding laws on his way to the Chrysalis, flashing his lights to clear his path through the evening traffic. If Vic was in labour, she was early. A good four weeks, if not more, early. It had taken everything he had to get her to reduce her hours to half days, eventually accepting defeat on making her start maternity leave early. “Ruby, how is she?” He asked into his radio.

 

“She’s not sounding good, Walt.”

 

“I’m turning into the trailer park now.” He heard the message relayed and then the echo of his horn as he kept his hand on it, letting her know he was there.

 

He screeched to a halt in front of her RV, running out of the truck with the engine still running.

 

_“Walt!_ ” her voice carried from inside, the fear conveyed in the single syllable enough to drop his heart to his stomach.

 

“Vic!”

 

The RV shook as he bounded up the steps inside, finding her sat on the couch-bed opposite the door. Her face red with tears, fright and pain, her body arched. “It’s too early, Walt. She’s too early.”

 

“C’mon,” he took her hands and pulled her to her feet and carefully down the steps.

 

He wrapped his arm around her waist and half carried-half pulled her to his car, helping her to the seat and running around the bonnet to climb into the driver's seat. He pulled her to his side, swiping the sweat from her forehead and squeezing her hand. “It's gonna be okay, Vic.”

 

“You don't know that, something’s wrong, _oh God,_ Walt, it's too early, she’s not due for _weeks_ yet.”

 

“You’re surprised the daughter of Vic Moretti is impatient and impulsive?” Gravel flew as he spun the truck around and for the exit. “She’s you, Vic, and she’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

 

“Hurry, Walt, _please.”_

 

He gunned it back down the highway, calling Ruby over the radio to say he had her and to call the hospital to let them know.

 

Vic swore into her next contraction, her hand squeezing his painfully.

 

“Breathe. Breathe into it.”

 

“I _am_ fucking breathing.”

 

“No, pant. Remember your lamaze classes.”

 

“I didn't go to them, Walt, I went to get freakin’ _ice cream_.”

 

He laughed as much as he could with one hand on the wheel, one hand in hers, his heart beating furiously in his chest and his mind flooding with memories of the last time he was racing to the hospital with her like this. He hadn’t known then if she - _they_ \- would make it and he found himself praying, bargaining, pleading with whoever could hear his mind that they would be okay again.  “Okay, okay, um, just swear in pants on your next contraction. Breathe them, that’s it.”

 

Her hand squeezed his again, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”

 

“That’s it-”

 

“ _Fuckfuckfuckfuck!”_

 

He slammed his hand on the horn as he turned into the hospital parking lot. “We’re here, Vic, we’re here. It's going to be okay.”

 

She was helped onto a gurney by Doc Weston and the nurses.

 

“Fuckfuckfuck _fuckfuck_!”

 

“Sorry,” Walt muttered to the nurses.

 

She twisted to look at him and point a finger, “Don’t you fucking apologise - ow _fuuuuck_ \- for me!”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“We got her, Walt, you can wait out here,” Doc Weston told him, turning down another corridor. “Where’s the dad?”

 

“He’s out of town. She’s early, she’s not due-”

 

“Okay, you call-”

 

“-No, he’s coming in.”

 

“You’re sure?” Walt and Doc Weston asked, the bed being led into a delivery suite.

 

The doors slid shut on her but her voice carried, “Get in here!”

 

Walt took a breath and slid off his hat, following her into the room.

 

.. **four**..

  


The beeping of the monitors roused her when it was still dark out. The lights had been dimmed and it took a few quickened beats of her heart before she realised she was in the hospital. And if she was in the hospital then…

 

She looked around and finally focused on the see-through incubator at her bedside, a tiny, _beautiful_ , little pink bundle sleeping soundly.

 

She heaved a sigh, her head falling back into the pillow. The baby must be okay. Vic felt like her arms and legs were weighted down but the baby must be okay if she was in the room with her.

 

She was tightly swaddled in a blanket, a scrunched up little face already looking mad at the world but sleeping peacefully. Her baby. Her daughter. _Jesus._ She took in the length of her and smiled at what she found near where her little feet would be. Walt’s hand. He was asleep in the chair next to the bed, a giant hand resting lightly on her daughter, already protecting her.

 

The swell of emotion at the sight caught her off guard and a tear slid from her cheek. How was this her life? How could so much have changed from those few years ago when she was the green, over-eager, way naive little Philly cop? Now she was a Mom. A mom in a totally different state with no family locally but some of the most incredible people she could ever dream of to help her raise her baby.

 

The baby sneezed and Vic smiled, both at the sight but also at the jolt it gave Walt, his eyes snapping open and checking she was okay. He looked at Vic and caught her watching him through heavy lidded eyes. He smiled, “Get some rest, Mom.”

 

She smiled, another tear sliding to the pillow.


End file.
